A Preview of Calculus

Lesson 2.1
 What Do You Think?
What things could be considered the
greatest achievements of the human
mind?
 It's the Greatest!
Consider that all these things emerged
because of technological advances
Those advances relied on CALCULUS !
Calculus has made it possible to:
Build giant bridges
Travel to the moon
Predict patterns of population change
True or False?
The Genius of Calculus is Simple
It relies on only two ideas
The Derivative
The Integral
Both come from a common sense analysis
of motion
Motion is change in position over time
All you have to do is drop your pencil to see it
happen
 What Is Calculus
It is the mathematics of change
It is the mathematics of
tangent lines
slopes
areas
volumes
It enables us to model real life situations
It is dynamic
In contrast to algebra/precalc which is static
 What Is Calculus
One answer is to say it is a "limit
machine"
Involves three stages
1. Precalculus/algebra mathematics process
Building blocks to produce calculus techniques
2. Limit process
The stepping stone to calculus
3. Calculus
Derivatives, integrals
Contrasting Algebra & Calculus

Use f(x) to find the Find the limit of f(x) as

height of the curve at x approaches c
x=c
Contrasting Algebra & Calculus

Find the average rate Find the

of change between instantaneous rate of
t = a and t = b change at t = c
Contrasting Algebra & Calculus

Area of a rectangle Area between two

curves
 Tangent Line Problem
Approximate slope of tangent to a line
Start with slope of secant line

f ( x x) f ( x)
msecant
x
 Tangent Line Problem
Now allow the x to get smaller

f ( x x) f ( x)
mtangent lim
x 0
x
 The Area Problem
We seek the area under a curve, the
graph f(x)

We approximate
that area with
a number of
rectangles
Sum = 31.9
Actual = 33.33
 The Area Problem
The approximation is improved by
increasing the number of rectangles

Number of
rectangles = 10
Sum = 32.92
Actual = 33.33
 The Area Problem
The approximation is improved by
increasing the number of rectangles

Number of
rectangles = 25
Sum = 33.19
Actual = 33.33

View Applet Example

 Assignment

Lesson 2.1
Page 67
Exercises 1 10 all